STATE OF OUR FORESTS

This is an article that Jim Petersen recently wrote for RANGE Magazine

There is nothing new, normal, natural, or inevitable about what we are witnessing... What we are witnessing is not “the new normal.” Nor is it a direct result of “climate change.” It is the downstream result of congressional/federal failure to control three decades of uninterrupted tree growth in national forests that hold too many trees for the natural carrying capacity of the land.

The western United States is on the leading edge of the worst wildfire season in a century. By any measure, a pandemic.

A call to action to create forest-to-community health within the WUI/Wildland Urban Interface - and an overview of the current state of the forest, wildfire risk, needed treatment, and landowner and community resources in Lincoln County.

None of the Biden Administration’s climate change/carbon capture goals can be reached until our wildfire pandemic has been quieted.

McLeod and Douglas recorded their observations in daily journals that describe miles of sparse prairie burned clear of most vegetation, punctuated by scattered groves of trees - mostly oak with some conifer, more so on the eastern slopes of the Coast Range. There was no "sea of old growth" – or even second growth.

Global warming is real and urgent, and is primarily caused by the burning of carbon-based fuels

The second half

We bring you this letter by rancher Dave Daley that tells of his harrowing experience last summer when the Bear Fire struck his property and destroyed his land and cattle. We ask you read this and remember just what is at stake each day our forests go unmanaged. This letter has been split into two parts

sixty years ago today - March 1, 1961 – less than two months after his presidency began, John Fitzgerald Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, creating the Peace Corps. In the ensuing years, more than 235,000 American volunteers have served in 141 countries around the world.

Tom Vilsack is back in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is almost a cult hero among midwestern farm, ethanol and biotech lobbies.

Why do those who purport to care so much about western Oregon's forests continue to ignore and/or deny such a vast storehouse of history – information that sheds an illuminating light on the past, to say nothing of the future?

A speech by Jim Petersen on the state of western watersheds.

Now DeLuca has immersed himself – and the College of Forestry he leads – in an eyebrow-raising proposal that could cost the forestry school dearly. At issue is the political fate of the Elliott State Forest, an enormously valuable natural asset...

I got a telephone call one morning in April 1987 that was to change my professional life.The caller was a man I'd never met: Carl Stoltenberg

Zybach introduction for OF&WJ essay

Former Forest Chief, Dale Bosworth, and Jerry Williams, the Forest Service's former National Director of Fire Management, have forgotten more about the West’s wildfire pandemic and its underlying causes than most of us will ever know. So when their letter to Robert Bonnie arrived in our email box, we read it – and its accompanying report – with considerable interest.

We believe all federal forest and rangelands should be consolidated within a single cabinet-level Department of Natural Resources.

Doug MacCleery, a friend and colleague of 30 years has written a thoughtful essay explaining how the western wildfire pandemic came to be and what Congress and the Forest Service must do to reduce the risks associated with killing wildfires.

Forestry's always dismissive and increasingly vocal critics have convinced millions of Americans that forest landowners are greedy people.

Judging FEMAs response on wildfire compared to other natural disasters.

describing options for the us forest service and private companies to combat wildfire.

Can you guess the COVID infection rate on Forest Service wildfire lines last summer? Two Percent. Just two percent, thats all.

This is Part 2 of our series "It's Time to Declare War on Wildfire." This section begins with Rob Freres describing the impacts of wildfire on private lands due to the incompetence of the Forest Service managing public lands.

The 2020 wildfire season was the worst since 1910. How much more can we tolerate? Its time to declare war on wildfire.

Petition for a call to action to preserve our national forests.

Paul Hessburg, fire and landscape ecologist, addresses his concerns regarding the confusion that persists surrounding the use and meaning of “managed wildfire."

If you've been reading Evergreen in the past few years or longer, you’ve seen a raft of articles that look at the US Forest Service with a critical eye.

Back in February 15, 2015, Evergreen published my proposal for Congress to pass a Single-Use-Sustained Yield Act (“SUSY” for short).  My proposed law would essentially designate a small percentage of Federally managed forests for “focused forestry”

Mr. Rains wrote the President a five-page letter on June 19. We posted it on our site then and it can be read again here. After President Trump's Latest visit to the site of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, Mr. Rains writes to the President once more

This is the first segment of a five-part interview with Michael T. Rains, who was Director of the Northern Research Station at Newtown Square, Pennsylvania for 15 years and, concurrently, Director of the Forest Products Laboratory at Newtown Square for three years. He retired from the U.S. Forest Service in 2016.

“THE ‘FIRE FIX' DOES NOTHING TO BACKFILL THE HUGE GAP THAT HAS BEEN CREATED IN LOST NON-FIRE AND FOREST MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES FOREGONE.”

Ms. Christiansen, who was appointed March 9, following the March 7 resignation of Tony Tooke, said all the things you would expect an incoming Chief to say in her first public outing, but she made no mention of the sexual misconduct difficulties that led to Mr. Tooke's resignation.

The Forest Service's abysmal won-loss record at Silver, Biscuit and now Chetco Bar [0-3] is a detriment to every living creature struggling to right itself within our fire-scarred landscape. Is this the best you can do?

Kurt Pregitzer is an affable and unpretentious man, not what you'd expect from a PhD forest ecologist who ranks in the top one-half of one percent of the world’s most frequently cited authors.

The six living former Chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service have jointly signed a letter to the U.S. House and Senate majority and minority leaders urging them to fix the fire borrowing mess that annually sabotages the agency's ability to treat diseased and dying National Forests before catastrophic wildfires destroy them.

This must be a bitter pill for Seeley Lake residents who last summer endured weeks of smoke so thick that air quality meters could not accurately measure carcinogenic pollutants generated by the fire. The “new normal” we're told.

Marijuana growers have been practicing their trade in remote National Forests in southern Oregon and northern California since the early 1970s.

Horrible air quality, deadly health risks, cancelled cultural and sporting events, highway blockades, and millions of dollars lost in every industry. What else can we afford to lose from wildfire?

Just when I thought I'd said all that need be said for now about the cancerous risks of wildfire smoke, a friend sent me a copy of the “Montana/Idaho Wildfire Carbon Emissions Inventory for 2013-2017."

I've been trying for more than 20 years to interest the nation’s health care industry - including the American Lung Association - in this story. “Too controversial,” I was told, again and again. Such is the murderous influence of the “Don’t worry, it’s natural” crowd.

Retired Nevada State Forester, Bob Roper, has written a brutally honest assessment of the underlying and still unresolved problems associated with the West's wildfire crisis.

Evergreen Magazine's Editor-in-Chief shares his thoughts on the work Tony Tooke has ahead of him this coming year repairing the fire ravaged western states.

We are bankrupting our future in Colorado's National Forests In riveting testimony, Lyle Laverty explains why.

Bruce Ward is the Founder and President of Choose Outdoors, a Colorado-based coalition of outdoor recreation enthusiasts who work to increase public support for all forms of outdoor recreation, especially activities that frequently occur in National Forests

In this interview, Groeschl answers questions concerning Good Neighbor Authority [GNA], implementing legislation embedded in the 2014 Farm Bill that permits the Forest Service and the Idaho Department of Lands to partner with one another on high priority forest restoration projects on National Forests in Idaho.

Mitch Friedman is the Founder and Executive Director of Conservation Northwest, a Seattle-based conservation group...In this interview, Friedman discusses Conservation Northwest's collaborative successes, still bothersome regrets from his Earth First years and his belief that collaboration offers the best hope for resolving still contentious issues concerning the management of the West’s National Forests.

If we choose wisely, relying on the mechanical thinning, prescribed fire and managed fire, we can still protect most of our remaining forest assets, including the soil and water. But over much of the Intermountain West, the forests in our future are not going to look much like the forests we've been enjoying for the last 60 or 70 years.

It is a myth to say Categorical Exclusions will over-ride federal environmental laws and exempt logging from any analysis or disclosure of adverse environmental impacts and eliminate public involvement

Commissioner Goldmark discusses his growing concerns for the rapidly deteriorating condition of national forests east of the Cascades, related economic and environmental impacts, and what might be done to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire in Washington's forests.

Our country's National Forests – once viewed as the gold standard by which all other public forest ownerships were judged – are dying and burning by the millions of acres annually. Their precipitous decline signals a forest health crisis unprecedented in American history.

It appears from the outside that the Forest Service organization is struggling to find its way in an increasingly complex society and environment.

We are at a crossroads with forest health, our mills and the future condition of our forests. The aftermath of a years-long mountain pine beetle epidemic, stalled projects on thousands of acres of national forests, and continued threats from wildfires provide a strong basis for increased focus on how we manage forests and how we ensure we have a vibrant wood products industry providing good-paying jobs for Montanans.

In this interview Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, discusses the "praiseworthy work" of forest collaboration.

A proposal by forester Barry Wynsma concerning the Single Use Sustained Yield Act (SUSY) as a means of improving the management of our National Forests.

Jim Petersen discusses how more Americans need to see reasons to join the conversation involving the future of forestry in the West.

There are clear signs that the policy of “letting nature take its course” in the West's federal forests is a prescription for environmental disaster.

Canadian forestry is a model of how compromise with common interests in mind can lead to both economic and environmental rewards.

Forestry has long been left out of the public discussion surrounding issues of sustainability. It's time that changed.

An overview of Case No. 1, the first ever government-regulated timber sale.

The establishment of the National Forest System was one of the great forestry accomplishments of all time. It's time congress went back to the beginning.

Why congress is afraid to act on the issue of what to do about our national forests.

Op-Ed by Bruce Vincent touting his support for loggers and those in the logging industry.

According to the Forest Service, the collaborative process has been a success and our forests are receiving much needed treatments. Is this the truth?